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I would seriously hate it if they started using 3rd party stuff again. Going through Rise of the Runelords, there was a lot of Green Ronin crap used that I had no idea what it was. So please, let's not do this because I don't want to have to buy extra books to run games.
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I'll support this when 3rd party game designers start to consistently follow these metrics:
A) Actually learn the mechanics of the game.
B) Follow current spell/feat/mechanic syntax.
C) Aren't horrifically overpowered.
I'm not just a hater. I've bought several 3rd party products over the past couple years through Paizo. Some have been decent but most just reek of 3rd party design.
There's a joke among my local group about this very topic, You can always recognize a game designer by how poorly they understand a system's mechanics.
The 3rd party monster stats were printed in the AP itself. Buying a 3rd party book is not needed.
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Most of the 3rd party stuff I've bought, I've done so BECAUSE they were used in a Pathfinder product. Not because I needed it to run the adventure (stats are reprinted when needed, as mentioned above), but simply because of the exposure. My thinking is, if it's good enough stuff for Paizo to want to use it in one of their products, it's got to be good enough to take a look at...
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I'm fine with Paizo using 3PP material, and they have done so in the past, and will certainly continue to do so in the future. But they don't need to assume that you have the product...anything they use should be fully explained within the AP / module / etc that it is used in. And, as far as I've noticed, Paizo has done this.
By the way, Feral, there are some REALLY good 3PP here. Hell, I personally think that Frog God Games does adventures better than Paizo themselves do.
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I'll support this when 3rd party game designers start to consistently follow these metrics:
A) Actually learn the mechanics of the game.
B) Follow current spell/feat/mechanic syntax.
C) Aren't horrifically overpowered.
I'm not just a hater. I've bought several 3rd party products over the past couple years through Paizo. Some have been decent but most just reek of 3rd party design.
There's a joke among my local group about this very topic, You can always recognize a game designer by how poorly they understand a system's mechanics.
I have to say that is a bit harsh and not really very accurate. Many of the folks involved with the top Pathfinder Compatible Third Party Publishers also freelance FOR Paizo, so they are VERY familiar with game mechanics, game balance and correct spell/feat/mechanic syntax.
In fact, most of the 3PP companies I have had the priviledge to work with know the game VERY well. In fact, they tend to be very serious, passionate even, about balance and quality.
I would alter your joke to this ... You can always recognize a BAD game designer by how poorly they understand a system's mechanics.
I would hold up the top 3PP stuff as being every bit as good as most Paizo stuff.
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1) By the way, Feral, there are some REALLY good 3PP here.
2) Hell, I personally think that Frog God Games does adventures better than Paizo themselves do.
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1) he didn't say there wasn't any.2) Everyone as different Point of View...
Some would prefer a 3PP version of something because it is "better" (often unbalanced in favor of said version and/or contradict core rules).
Note that some don't even stray from the Core RuleBook, Meaning; no Advance Player Guide, no Ultimate Magic, no Ultimate Combat, etc
Products are reviewed on this site so getting a bad product is unlikely. There are a few companies with a good reputation.
Stuff made for DnD 3.0/3.5, stuff made for early Pathfinder, etc...
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Experience making said stuff.
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When it came out.
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some older stuff might not make sense by today standard.
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Another problem would be 3PP trying to sell their previous stuff in the more recent ones (paizo does this too sometime)
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For a bit of perspective...
Last year, 61 companies other than Paizo released almost 500 Pathfinder-compatible PDFs (on average, that's about 40 a month and about 9 a week). (My figures are just for Paizo.com alone and are a rough estimate.)
This is an incredible amount of material for anybody to pore over, even if you have the time to read all the material (which we don't). If you want Paizo developers to take notice of third-party publications, then both the publisher and fans of the material need to push it into view. (The cream of the crop, as they say, rises to the top).
Another caveat to consider is that our practice is to reprint everything needed to run a third-party item, and with word count a tightly controlled resource (moreso than bricks and wheat in my Catan game last night), many classes and prestige classes are right out, which is why you're more likely to see monsters (like material from the d20 classic Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts for the Jade Regent Adventure Path) or magic items.
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Removed posts. Please be constructive (and civil!) in your criticism.
I believe Caedwyr's post is as much a request towards the freelancers as it is to the Paizo peeps. It's conceivable that the freelancer could just send the copyright notices of what they used for addition to the S15. But perhaps part of the contract includes that they can't do that.
As we all know, freelancers have an infinite amount of time on their hands so they could search through to find the best.
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It often feels like I'm a minority, but I'm not a fan of 3PP in general and definitely not in official pathfinder material. I'd personally prefer for it to remain strictly optional and not utilized in paizo products at all.
I also don't think several attempts at the same concept is necessarily bad.
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All I'm asking, is rather than going off and creating your own "Insert Rule Here", to first take a look and see if anyone else has done so (via D20PFSRD.com or whatever other resources you have). Because of the OGL, if you want to include TAUNTFEAT in your ULTIMATE: WHATEVER, you can include 3RDPARTYTAUNTFEATOFAWESOMENESS instead of having to make up your own which may or may not be as good as the 3rd party content*.
*Any similarity to existing places, people, rules, or situations is pure coincidental.
You also have the problem that Paizo has their own Organized Play campaign, the Pathfinder Society. In that, if it is not published by Paizo, then is has no chance of being legal to use for a character or for the writers to use in a scenario. There are plenty of people who only get to play PRPG through PFS, like me, so I have no use for 3PP products, no matter how good they are or how much better duplicate material from a 3PP may be. For example, if I am going to play a witch, it will be the Paizo witch and not one from a 3PP, no matter which one is better, because that is the one I need to use in order for the character to be legal. I am also STILL burned out from the incredible glut of 3.0/3.5 books, good and bad, and I just do not have the energy or effort or desire to sort through the 3PP products and compare them to the Paizo products and figure out which one I like better in order to decide which version of something I want to use. Whether someone is lazy or does not have the time, it is just not worth it to me to deal with it, so I just stick with Paizo. That said, there are a very few companies still around from the old 3.0/3.5 days that I trust for quality and would give a look at if they ever did PRPG products. One example would be Green Ronin's Pathfinder stat book for Freeport.
Oh, and rules and mechanics aside, only Paizo can publish material for Golarion, so as long as that is the setting I am interested in, then that is who I am buying setting material from. But fluff is a whole other can of worms than rules mechanics and similar or duplicate classes, feats, etc.
Enevhar, caedwyr is proposing that Paizo actually reprints the material if it's what they are going for and it's up to snuff. In that case it would be official Paizo material then.
He's asking that they do the same thing for the other sourcebooks as they do for the Bestiaries.
Bestiary 3 had like...a gazzillion monsters from Tome of Horrors.
Why is material that Owen Stephens (to use an easy example) writes as a freelancer for Ultimate Magic intrinsicly superior to content that Owen Stephens writes for Super Genius Games? Why could Paizo not include a feat from a 3pp in a collection of feats for Ultimate Races if it fills the mechanical niche they want covered? Presumably the feat would be reprinted and undergo the same type of editing/oversight that a normal freelancer submission would face.
For me, it's not related to superiority/inferiority - its about perceived control and my completionist inclinations. If 3PP are part of the game then I have to buy them all - and since most of it is PDF, I'm not interested in joining that race.
Although I'm a little confused now - since if they're going to take a 3PP concept and then edit/develop/reprint it, aren't they "reinventing the wheel"?
Enevhar, caedwyr is proposing that Paizo actually reprints the material if it's what they are going for and it's up to snuff. In that case it would be official Paizo material then.
He's asking that they do the same thing for the other sourcebooks as they do for the Bestiaries.
Bestiary 3 had like...a gazzillion monsters from Tome of Horrors.
The only way I would want to see anything like that done, is if they do a compilation book, a "best of 3PP", like that one book Monte Cook released early in 3.0 that was a best of 3PP for those rules. Sure, he only did that one year, but there is no reason it would not work. But I do not want random 3PP stuff thrown into an official Paizo book. The person did not originally do the work for Paizo, so it should not be in one of their regular books.
As for monsters, those are a whole different thing. As long as you are not violating IP, you can rewrite or totally recreate any creature you want. If you don't like the way the pegasus or unicorn or basilisk, etc, has been written or statted, then do it your way. I do have to say that I do not know what monsters are off-limits beyond those that are the IP of TSR/WotC/Hasbro, so I am assuming that anything Paizo rewrote from Tome of Horrors, they had the legal right to do so, and I would rather have their version of them. I would also expect that if there are any IP-protected creatures in Tome of Horrors, that I would have to buy the PRPG version of that book, from that publisher, to get them.
I don't think 3PP products are built from a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced. You may well end up trying to fit a tractor wheel to a Porsche.
But I do not want random 3PP stuff thrown into an official Paizo book. The person did not originally do the work for Paizo, so it should not be in one of their regular books.
Could you explain that further?
To answer your question about the stuff Paizo used from ToH, it was the things that were designated Open Content by the publisher. As part of the OGL, if a company declares the material to be Open Content, then any other company can use it. (Or at least, that's the short of it)
I don't think 3PP products are built from a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced. You may well end up trying to fit a tractor wheel to a Porsche.
That's more an issue with the freelancer being used and it doesn't really matter who they are writing for.
FWIW, if these were the days of 3rd edition, I'd agree with you both, for the reasons Enevhar mentioned.
But the proposal isn't to use all 3pp stuff. Only the good stuff.
To quote Caedwyr in the original post, this is what he's talking about:
In both Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic, there were several feats that had been done better in third party publications.
I know he has specific examples in mind, but I'm sure he'd like to discuss this without pointing fingers (naming and shaming?) specific feats or options. I know that's the reason I haven't listed any specific feats too.
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...so I am assuming that anything Paizo rewrote from Tome of Horrors, they had the legal right to do so, and I would rather have their version of them. I would also expect that if there are any IP-protected creatures in Tome of Horrors, that I would have to buy the PRPG version of that book, from that publisher, to get them.
One of the nice thing about the Tome of Horrors is that it is 100% open. Indeed, making some of the monsters from previous editions open seems to have been at least part of the reason the original ToH was published. Of course, my personal preference is that Paizo do other monsters...if someone really wants the ToH monsters, they can just buy the ToH: Complete book from Frog God Games.
...And you should all want the ToH monsters.
Yea, I recall the reason for the Tome of Horrors was to open up all those monsters that Wizards had no intention of doing in the bestiaries. Maybe the exact reason is wrong, but...
But I do not want random 3PP stuff thrown into an official Paizo book. The person did not originally do the work for Paizo, so it should not be in one of their regular books.Could you explain that further?
The work was not originally commissioned by Paizo for a Paizo-published book, so it may not have originally met their requirements or regulations or whatever to be in one of their books, regardless of who wrote it. For all we know, it was something that was pitched to Paizo and rejected and ended up in a 3PP because of that. It is hard to explain, it is just a feeling I get about material handled this way. If something is so good that Paizo wants to reprint it unedited, then they should just buy the rights to the material and own it, even if they leave it as open content. Something like this I could handle. But if they decide to reprint something from a 3PP and have to edit it before putting it into a book, then what was wrong with it in the first place? In this situation, I would much rather they have someone in-house write an official Paizo version rather than buying or reprinting an inferior version and having to rewrite or edit it before publishing.
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Also, let's take a look at one of the writers for Frog God Games: Greg Vaughan. He's the only author to have written an installment for every single AP that Paizo has published to date. While he may not officially be a Paizo employee, I think that pretty much makes him a member of the Paizo family. Do you think that, for some reason, he's just not as good when he's writing the Slumbering Tsar as he is when he wrote, for example, Wake of the Watcher?
I don't think 3PP products are built from a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced...And so I ask again
Why is material that Owen Stephens (to use an easy example) writes as a freelancer for Ultimate Magic intrinsicly superior to content that Owen Stephens writes for Super Genius Games? Why could Paizo not include a feat from a 3pp in a collection of feats for Ultimate Races if it fills the mechanical niche they want covered? Presumably the feat would be reprinted and undergo the same type of editing/oversight that a normal freelancer submission would face.
You don't know until after the fact whether the mechanic in question is good or bad. A much simpler quality control process to have some kind of standardized rule development system internally.
Creative Director
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Here's the thing... We do like using 3rd party content in our adventures and products. Particularly monsters. But we don't want to just idly throw things in without having studied said content, and we're pretty busy, so we unfortunately don't have a lot of time to spend looking through a lot of 3rd party books for stuff. You see a fair amount of Tome of Horrors and Green Ronin stuff in adventure paths because I happen to be both quite familiar with those products and quite like the stuff... but you'll also be seeing other things show up as well now and then.
In any case, when we do, we take pains to make sure it's all reprinted, just as when we put in a witch or an oracle or whatever.
I don't think 3PP products are built from a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced. You may well end up trying to fit a tractor wheel to a Porsche.That's more an issue with the freelancer being used and it doesn't really matter who they are writing for.
FWIW, if these were the days of 3rd edition, I'd agree with you both, for the reasons Enevhar mentioned.
But the proposal isn't to use all 3pp stuff. Only the good stuff.
To quote Caedwyr in the original post, this is what he's talking about:
In both Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic, there were several feats that had been done better in third party publications.I know he has specific examples in mind, but I'm sure he'd like to discuss this without pointing fingers (naming and shaming?) specific feats or options. I know that's the reason I haven't listed any specific feats too.
The volume of 3PP material is going to make it pretty tough to discern the good stuff from the bad stuff.
I just dont see any issue - if there's some fabulous 3PP feat out there, is it really that much extra work to develop one that does the same thing as opposed to testing what's in existence and seeing if it is consistent with paizo's assumptions regarding such mechanics?
I think an example would help - maybe paizo don't agree with you/the 3PP designer about what's "better". I presume they have a reasonably detailed understanding of their aims and objectives when it comes to adding mechanical diddly bits.
Also, let's take a look at one of the writers for Frog God Games: Greg Vaughan. He's the only author to have written an installment for every single AP that Paizo has published to date. While he may not officially be a Paizo employee, I think that pretty much makes him a member of the Paizo family. Do you think that, for some reason, he's just not as good when he's writing the Slumbering Tsar as he is when he wrote, for example, Wake of the Watcher?
Aside from what James posted in between your post and mine, the cold, hard, simple truth may be that, no, they do not think what he wrote for another company is as good as the material he wrote for them, with the huge qualifier of especially if it was something he pitched to them first before going the 3PP route. But we will never know the answer to that, as I am sure Paizo will never talk about that kind of thing.
The work was not originally commissioned by Paizo for a Paizo-published book, so it may not have originally met their requirements or regulations or whatever to be in one of their books, regardless of who wrote it. For all we know, it was something that was pitched to Paizo and rejected and ended up in a 3PP because of that. It is hard to explain, it is just a feeling I get about material handled this way. If something is so good that Paizo wants to reprint it unedited, then they should just buy the rights to the material and own it, even if they leave it as open content. Something like this I could handle. But if they decide to reprint something from a 3PP and have to edit it before putting it into a book, then what was wrong with it in the first place? In this situation, I would much rather they have someone in-house write an official Paizo version rather than buying or reprinting an inferior version and having to rewrite or edit it before publishing.But I do not want random 3PP stuff thrown into an official Paizo book. The person did not originally do the work for Paizo, so it should not be in one of their regular books.Could you explain that further?
Well, Paizo owns all words submitted to them. So if they don't like it, they'll just not use it. It literally cannot become 3pp.
Here is what I'm fairly certain happens. I would greatly appreciate it if someone corrects me. A freelancer, say Owen K.C. Stephens or Dennis Baker, is contacted by Paizo to work on a specific project. If the freelancer accepts, they start working on it, and then eventually turn in stuff to Paizo. At this point, Paizo owns every word they wrote for the submission. Now Paizo edits those submissions. A great example of this is the dimensional agility feat line, which was changed quite a bit after the freelancer submitted it. Once it's through the editing pass, it's added to the book.
Paizo doesn't write all of the stuff "in-house". A lot of their stuff uses freelancers. Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat use a ton of freelancers. The APG used some too. Paizo doesn't have the time (although they certainly have the talent!) to write everything in house. And as mentioned above, there's already an editing pass for the stuff that these freelancers send them.
There's no need for them to waste money buying the original product if it's open content. All they would have to do is add the copyright information to the section 15 at the end of their books.
Just like what they did with the Tome of Horrors and the Book of Experimental Might.
Be rewriting it, it becomes official Paizo content.
I think an example would help - maybe paizo don't agree with you/the 3PP designer about what's "better". I presume they have a reasonably detailed understanding of their aims and objectives when it comes to adding mechanical diddly bits.
You would think, but then Dragon Style shows up :p
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Aside from what James posted in between your post and mine, the cold, hard, simple truth may be that, no, they do not think what he wrote for another company is as good as the material he wrote for them, with the huge qualifier of especially if it was something he pitched to them first before going the 3PP route. But we will never know the answer to that, as I am sure Paizo will never talk about that kind of thing.
Freelancers don't generally "pitch" stuff to us. We almost always tell them what we want them to write.
I think an example would help - maybe paizo don't agree with you/the 3PP designer about what's "better". I presume they have a reasonably detailed understanding of their aims and objectives when it comes to adding mechanical diddly bits.You would think, but then Dragon Style shows up :p
Is this an example of something where you think a 3PP has produced a similar concept done better?
I just dont see what the fuss is about - where's one of these 'rebuilt wheels' where it would have been easier for Paizo to have adopted some 3PP's work?
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I don't think 3PP products are built from a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced. You may well end up trying to fit a tractor wheel to a Porsche.
Which can sometimes be the appropriate thing to do, as can be seen here
Obviously my brand name awareness was a little off, but this was more the image I was going with.
Maybe they don't like something about how the 3pp version was written or how it was intended to work. Sometimes you like an idea, but not the execution of the idea.
I seem to recall seeing a 3rd party product that wasn't Necromancer / Frog God or Green Ronin in one of the S15s of a Paizo book. Wasn't a SKR work either.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
"Nyambe"?
(I hope Dreamscarred Psionics get a showing in Vudra or Castrovel someday)
Sadly probably not - at least James Jacobs has stated that when Psionics (or Psychic Magic as he's been calling it) shows up on Golarion they want to use a non-PowerPoints based system.
It's really easy to do a search at d20pfsrd.com for _____, before writing _____.
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I don't think 3PP products are built from a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced. You may well end up trying to fit a tractor wheel to a Porsche.
The problem with this statement is that it applies to Paizo as well.
Hence the current debacle over the Monk's Flurry of Blows.I love Paizo, and they are easily my favourite RPG developers to date, particularly in how close and responsive they are to the community. Unfortuntely (or fortunately!) they are human, and make mistakes, and also don't abide by a consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean.
To my knowledge, there is not a single Paizo employee or freelancer with eidetic memory and a PhD in RPG development. That's not a bad thing, but you can't expect perfection from 3PP developers anymore than you can from Paizo itself.
Personally, I've always been against 3PP stuff. For a long time, it was because I had this weird idea that 3PP was "cheating" or completely unbalanced because it was unofficial.
What changed my tune recently were the products from Dreamscarred Press. I missed the old Psionic rules and wanted them in a Pathfinder game I was thinking of running. After a lot of great reviews, I bought their Psionics supplements and was astounded at the quality and balance. In fact, I think they have the best Psionic rules to date (though I may be biased, because they actually FIXED the Soul Knife and the Aegis KICKS BUTT!!).
There are some amazing 3PP developers that have created some of their own RPG systems as well. Green Ronin comes to mind, with Mutants and Masterminds. It's fantastic if you love Superhero RPGs. :)